When modern humans left Africa as far back as 70,000 years ago, they dispersed across the world, reaching Australia 50,000 to 40,000 years ago. From then until the 18th-century arrival of European colonists, aboriginal Australians did not mix their DNA with anyone else in the world - or so many scientists believed. Now a study has turned up evidence of much more recent interbreeding between native Australians and people who came from India. The findings, based on a detailed examination of the DNA of aboriginal Australians and hundreds of people of other pedigrees, found that mixing occurred as recently as 4,200 years ago. Reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the results dovetail with interesting archaeological and fossil changes, said study leader Mark Stoneking, a molecular anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

The 40th running of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach is Sunday with one overarching question: Who can put the brakes on Will Power? The 33-year-old Australian has won the last three Verizon IndyCar Series races, and four of the last six, going back to last season. Power's latest victory in his No. 12 Team Penske car was a dominant one at IndyCar's season opener March 30 on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla. Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Course Map Power also knows his way around the seaside streets that make up the 11-turn, 1.97-mile Long Beach course.

Australians celebrate their version of Thanksgiving in May, but Adam Scott took a moment on Thursday to be thankful for birdies. Playing in the Australian Open, Scott parlayed a fast start into a course record 10-under 62, taking an opening-round lead at Royal Sydney. "It was a beautiful morning, that's for sure," he said. "I came out hitting great shots and didn't have much work to clean them up. " Birdies on the first six holes started him in the right direction. After his game started to cool, Scott responded with four more birdies down the home stretch.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court sounded ready Monday to curtail the use of certain business patents in a case involving a patent for a computerized risk analysis of international financial transactions. Use of such business-method patents has soared in recent decades. Once granted, they can give a firm or a person a monopoly for up to 20 years to profit from the patented process. Critics say many of the recent computer-related patents are vague and stifle innovation by giving exclusive rights to commonly used methods or formulas.

Australians are more religious than many people think, according to the Rev. Gary Bouma, an Anglican priest and lecturer at Monash University in Australia. In an article written for the Australian magazine Church and Nation, Bouma wrote, "It cannot be said that Australians are essentially secular and irreligious when about 58% claim to be religious persons; two-thirds pray, meditate or contemplate occasionally or more frequently, and only 4.5% claim to be atheists."

Martin Iti, a 6-foot-11 Australian basketball player who spent the last three years crisscrossing the United States in search of a high school that suited him and his guardian, has enrolled at the Winchendon School in Winchendon, Mass., according to Richard Plank, the school's director of admissions. Iti will be classified as a junior. It will be his sixth school in four states since arriving in the United States in May 1998. Classes begin Sept. 10.

Police shot and killed a man armed with explosives who took 10 Australians hostage on a tourist bus in northern China, the official New China News Agency reported. The news agency, citing local police, said a man identified as Xia Tao hijacked the bus in the popular tourist city of Xian. The agency said he was shot after a standoff lasting almost three hours. Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said the hijacker's motives were not known. "There is no indication this was particularly aimed at Australia or Australians," he told Australia's Nine Network television.

A man from Melbourne, Australia, who allegedly used an Internet blog to threaten violence at the Grove shopping mall has been arrested by authorities in Australia. The Victoria Police Force has charged Jarrad Willis, 20, with "creating a false belief," a violation of Australian law, Los Angeles Police Department officials said Friday. "The suspect did not have any operational capacity to carry out his threat," said LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Downing.

A security guard accused in the 1999 killing of an Australian missionary and his two sons in eastern India testified that he was responsible and that 11 other defendants are not guilty. Graham Staines, 58, and his sons were burned alive in their jeep in Manoharpur, 145 miles north of the city of Bhubaneshwar. The killings were part of a series of attacks on missionaries and Christian institutions attributed at the time to activists who claimed that poor Hindus were being coerced to convert.

Los Angeles' fourth-oldest newspaper, the 97-year-old B'nai B'rith Messenger, has been sold and major changes are planned for the weekly, its new owners said. The city's oldest Anglo-Jewish weekly was purchased by a group of Australian investors headed by real estate developer Joe Bobker. The paper was sold to Bobker by outgoing executive editor Rabbi Yale Butler and his Pittsburgh-based family. The Butlers had run the paper for 12 years.

BEIJING - The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said Friday it had a new "credible lead" that suggested Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 probably crashed 680 miles northeast of the search area where more than a dozen planes and ships have been looking the last 10 days. The location was changed after a new analysis of radar data from the South China Sea and Malacca Strait before contact was lost with the Boeing 777, which was carrying 239 passengers and crew members when it disappeared March 8. "It indicated that the aircraft was traveling faster than previously estimated, resulting in increased fuel usage and reducing the possible distance the aircraft traveled south into the Indian Ocean," the Australian agency said Friday.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Spurred by additional satellite leads, Australian officials on Sunday ramped up a multinational effort to comb a vast stretch of the south Indian Ocean for traces of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said eight military and civilian aircraft carrying 20 volunteer spotters - double the number used Saturday - would look for objects that were shown floating about 1,500 miles off...

SYDNEY, Australia - Hyun-Jin Ryu has traveled not only to the other side of the world, but also back in time. On the Australian All-Star team the Dodgers will face Thursday night is 44-year-old Dae-Sung Koo, a fellow left-hander from whom Ryu learned his best pitch, the changeup. Here to pitch the second game of the Dodgers' two-game, season-opening series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Ryu saw Koo at the Sydney Cricket Ground earlier this week. When Ryu did, he made it a point to call Koo "sunbae," a Korean term used to show deference to a senior.

As the opening race of the Formula One season, the Australian Grand Prix always is fraught with unknowns. But this year's race on the 3.3-mile Albert Park layout in Melbourne on Sunday is especially unpredictable due to rules changes and a shuffling of some teams' drivers. Among other things, the cars have gone from V-8 engines to turbocharged V-6 engines, the amount of fuel allowed during a race has been limited, the gearbox has been expanded from seven gears to eight and there are changes in various body parts including the nose and front wing.

Wendy Hughes Australian actress dies at 61 Wendy Hughes, 61, an Australian actress best known to American audiences for her performance in the 1979 film "My Brilliant Career," died of cancer Saturday in Sydney, her family said. Hughes began her rise to stardom during a renaissance in the Australian film industry in the 1970s and '80s, beginning with "My Brilliant Career," in which she played Aunt Helen to the headstrong heroine portrayed by Judy Davis. The film swept the Australian Film Institute awards and in the U.S. was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe.

Lindsay Davenport has been elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Knowing her, when word got out, she probably asked for a recount, just to make sure she hadn't bumped out somebody else more deserving. She is 37 now, lives in Orange County, is married to Jon Leach of the famed USC tennis family of dad and coach Dick Leach and longtime pro doubles star Rick Leach, Jon's brother. Jon was a USC All-American and is now an investment banker. Davenport had her fourth child in January and was notified of her Hall of Fame selection as she was about to give birth.

He calls his head coach "mate" and lives to tell about it. He has a standing offer to buy beer for the entire citizenry of St. Louis. He hops like a kangaroo after sacking a quarterback. You would remember Colin Scotts if you met him. Somewhere between the story about driving a special car with square wheels and the one about his first experience with football pads, you'd have no choice.

If UCLA really is more than two touchdowns better than Arizona State, as oddsmakers would have us believe, the most interesting aspect of tonight's game at the Rose Bowl might be the punting of Arizona State's Brad Williams. Maybe it will be, anyway. Williams, a native of Perth, Australia, is probably the most unorthodox punter in college football. He grew up playing Australian rules football--described by a Mesa (Ariz.

February 21, 2014 | By Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times Television Critic

"Portlandia" (IFC, Thursdays). The sketch-comedy expression of the best-friendship of Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein begins its fourth season this week. Brownstein, formerly of the band Sleater-Kinney and currently of Wild Flag, has long since proved herself as a comedian, while, Armisen, who spent a generation on "Saturday Night Live," has been named bandleader for Seth Meyers' imminently arriving late-late-night show; their series, whose many guest players include musicians alongside comics and actors, sits at the intersection of their several shared interests.

The president of Australia's Olympic Committee says travel by that country's athletes' will be restricted during the Winter Games in Sochi due to safety concerns after the deadly suicide bombings earlier this week in Russia. "None of our athletes will be traveling to or from Sochi by car, bus or train (all will be traveling by air); none will be training or competing outside of Sochi in Russia; and none will be holidaying elsewhere in Russia after the Games," John Coates, the committee president, said in a statement . The Olympic Games are set for Feb. 7-23, followed by the Paralympic Games from March 7-16.